17-year-old illegal immigrant charged with murder

An illegal Guatemalan immigrant is in custody on charges of murder in the slaying of a Beaumont man.

Police arrested 17-year-old Moises Antonio Morales Ramos on Tuesday, July 9, for the murder of Eleazar Lopez, who was found dead Sunday, July 7, in a ditch near the 6600 block of Westwood Street just off College Street in Beaumont.

Ramos said little to reporters Tuesday as he was led to jail from the Beaumont Police Department downtown station, but BPD spokesman Joe Ornelas said officers have found their man with the help of Beaumont’s Latino community.

“The Hispanic community tends to put pressure on the individuals,” Ornelas said. “If they know something, they’re going to pressure that individual to turn themselves in.”

Ornelas went on to thank concerned neighbors who, in this case, made the anonymous calls to police that led them to Ramos, who police said later confessed to the murder.

“There were a lot of anonymous tips from the trailer park,” he said. “People just didn’t want to get involved, so they gave us the tips and eventually (put) pressure on the gentleman to come in and confess.”

What’s more, residents of the local trailer park where Lopez and Ramos lived eventually found the murder weapon, which had gone missing in the days after Lopez was shot in the back.

“He hid the gun, and the residents in the trailer park located that gun and called police,” Ornelas said.

The murdered Lopez was a family man who leaves behind sons and daughters.

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